Department of Trade and Industry

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor). I also congratulate the Minister of State, Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, South (Ian Pearson), on acquiring the role of Minister responsible for science and innovation. I am sure that that is a great privilege for him. The report on which the debate is founded is based on three separate inquiries undertaken by the Science and Technology Committee. The first was on the ABC classification of drugs, and it has already been debated—in a Westminster Hall Adjournment debate on 14 June. The second was on identity card technologies, and I hope that we have contributed to that ongoing debate. The third inquiry, on which I shall say more in a minute, was on the EU physical agents (electromagnetic fields) directive, which is a bit of a mouthful. The Science and Technology Committee was particularly interested in how the Government use the scientific advisory system as a whole to form their policies. As the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), pointed out, the Government claim to base their policies on the evidence provided to them. I should stress that we also considered the application of social science, as well as of the natural and physical sciences. I would like to say a few words about the Select Committee. Last Thursday morning, I was at the parliamentary affairs committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry at Burlington House. I am one of its parliamentary advisers, and a fellow of the society. Representatives of all the great learned and professional societies around the city attended that meeting, as well as representatives of the Royal Society of Chemistry. I want to convey to the House their utmost concern about the possible future of the Science and Technology Committee, to which the Chairman has already referred. They want me to tell the House that it would be almost a calamity if the Select Committee disappeared as a separate-standing, cross-cutting Committee which looks at all science, technology and engineering across Departments—a truly cross-cutting Committee like the Public Accounts Committee. They would prefer to see it survive in its present form, rather than be subsumed into the departmental Committee of the new Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills. Will my hon. Friend the Minister tell me whether, if we were subsumed into the departmental Committee, we could still enjoy a cross-cutting role? I do not think that we could, but he might have a different view. Some of the greatest problems that the Government are facing today need advice from our scientists. They include food scares; E. coli; foot and mouth disease; bovine spongiform encephalopathy—BSE—in cattle and its transmission to man as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria; HIV/AIDS; the threat of avian influenza; substance abuse, in which I include alcohol and tobacco; the threat of terrorism and crime in general; the supply of energy; and climate change. These are all examples of policy areas that have required, and will continue to require, a scientific input. The current review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 is another example of the importance of scientific advice in advising the Government on the way forward. In a recent session with the chief medical officer, I got the distinct feeling that scientific research was ahead of even his thinking in this policy area. In March 2007, the then Government chief scientific adviser, Lord May, published his ““Guidelines on the Use of Scientific Advice in Policy Making””, which was updated in 2000 and 2005. In March 1998, the then Select Committee on Science and Technology published a major inquiry into the scientific advisory system, which we have followed up, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) has already mentioned. A number of reports, such as Lord Phillips’ report on BSE and CJD in October 2000, Government reports such as the White Paper ““Investing in Innovation”” published in 2002, and the Government’s 10-year investment framework for science and innovation have strongly influenced the application of science in Government policy making during the time of this Government. The Committee has always taken the view that the Government’s chief scientific adviser should be seen to be as independent of Departments as possible. Indeed, our report recommends that the CSA should sit in the Cabinet Office with a seat on the Board of the Treasury, rather than in the Office of Science and Technology or, now, in the new Department. We shall wait with interest to see whether the new arrangement will give a greater focus to science, engineering and technology, although I am disappointed, as are others, that the word ““science”” does not appear in the title of the new Department. Significantly, the head of the Government economic service, Sir Nicholas Stern, has his base in the Cabinet Office, but retains a desk in the Treasury. We have recommended that the Government’s CSA work closely—perhaps more closely than in the past—with the head of the Government economic service and with the three social science chiefs of profession. The Committee has always taken the view that there should be a chief scientific adviser in all the major State Departments. We believe that we were particularly responsible for persuading the Department for International Development to employ a CSA. He has been active and forward looking in his advice to that Department, and I believe that that has had an effect on its work. Departmental CSAs have been appointed both from within State Departments and by secondment from positions outside. Those appointed from outside usually work on a part-time basis, for three or four days a week, as well as continuing to work for their former employer, which is often a university. The evidence that we have collected suggests that there are advantages in seconding people to those positions from outside the great State Departments. They bring in a lot of outside experience, and they can also go back and work with their research students, enjoy discussions and raise questions about their work in government with their colleagues in academia or industry. Such outside appointments have traditionally been short fixed-term appointments, which has resulted in quite a turnover, and quite a range of advice coming into the major State Departments throughout the secondments. Our report commends the Department for Transport’s model. Its CSA has been, and still is, an outside appointment, but a deputy has been appointed from within the Department to advise the externally appointed CSA on the advice available in the Department. We feel that it is important to run CSAs and their deputies in that way, and we recommend that other Departments adopt that model. The Committee also believes that departmental CSAs should be ““on top”” and not ““on tap””, as the report put it, which means that they should be involved in all major policy decisions in their Department. We have collected evidence that things can go wrong if that is not the case. I shall come to the EU physical agents (electromagnetic fields) directive in a moment. In that case, things went terribly wrong because there was not full consultation. While departmental CSAs are directly answerable to their permanent secretaries, they should also be allowed to interact freely with the Government’s CSA, and with their equivalents in other Departments, so that there is a free flow of information across government in the scientific advisory service. In my youth, there was a Government scientific service—indeed, I almost joined it—and the Committee strongly believes that it should be re-established. We have collected evidence that those scientists who are employed by the Government—we cannot find out exactly how many there are across the Departments—tend to hide their scientific role, because they feel that if they display their scientific background, they will not be preferred for promotion, which is rather sad. The civil service appears to prefer generalists to specialists, but we are dealing with some pretty specialist policy advice. We feel that State Departments need scientists to display their scientific ability freely. In recent years, the science base of the civil service has been weakened by loss of the laboratory of the Government chemist, by the transformation of the Forensic Science Service, by the creation of QinetiQ out of the Ministry of Defence, and perhaps in other ways too. There is a Government social research service, a Government economic service, a Government statistical service and a Government operational research service, so why, I ask the Minister, do we not have a Government service for the natural and physical sciences, engineering and technology? In all its inquiries, our Committee has always been influenced by the evidence, both written and oral, that we have received from a plethora of professional and learned societies and organisations. In engineering, for example, there are more than 40 professional organisations representing the different kinds of engineers across Britain. As I have already said, I am a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. It has become clear to the Committee that the advice of all these bodies is not being utilised to best effect by Governments. The professional organisations are there. They carry out many inquiries themselves, and all this advice—from the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and hundreds of others—is available to Governments. I know that the Royal Society of Chemistry was extremely pleased last year when its council was invited to 10 Downing street for a discussion on the future of energy supplies. A number of other external agencies also advise the Government. We should mention the Council for Science and Technology—the top-level advisory board on science and technology that was re-launched in 2004. Just the other day, our Committee was questioning the present chief scientific adviser about the past and present CST and its role. No doubt a report will appear in the next few days. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is frequently cited as an exemplar of good practice in respect of its scientific advisory system on account of its establishment of an independent scientific advisory council comprising 16 members to support the work of the departmental CSA. Implementation of the Gershon review appears to have increased the Government’s reliance on external consultants as sources of technical and scientific advice. Sometimes the Government’s own agencies—and even in-house expertise—are ignored, while external appointments are made, which cost Departments a small fortune. For example, between 6 April 2005 and 18 April 2006, the Home Office paid PA Consulting £14,248,799.21 for its work on the identity card programme. I sometimes have nightmares wondering what the 21p was spent on! My own professional society, the RSC, has expressed concern over"““the use of private consultants by Government which has had the effect of undermining the traditional willingness of the scientific community to contribute to the formal consultation process””."